Colton's Texas Stakeout

“We’ll get another break,” Luis said.

Regina was no longer writing to Matthew Colton in prison. They had the letters and not much else. The FBI might find something in her room or perhaps they’d receive a tip on their hotline, but the more time that passed, the colder the trail grew. “Hopefully soon.”

“What letter is she up to? G?” Luis asked.

“G,” Annabel confirmed. The Alphabet Killer, while adopting some of Matthew Colton’s rituals, had added some of her own. She was killing women of a certain profile—long, dark hair, twenty to thirty-five years old—in letter order based on her victims’ first names. The police hadn’t caught the pattern until the killer’s third victim, Celia Robison, had been killed on her wedding day. She’d had a bull’s-eye center dot slightly off center to the left drawn on her forehead. Celia had been Sam’s fiancée, and her death had brought the serial killer case even closer to home. So close, in fact, the FBI previously suspected Annabel’s long-lost sister, Josie, of being the Alphabet Killer. Annabel was relieved the FBI had turned their attention away from Josie. No matter what rumors swirled about Josie, Annabel wouldn’t believe her missing sister was a killer.

They had their father’s blood in them, undeniably, but each of Matthew Colton’s children had chosen honorable and respectable jobs on the right side of the law. Though she couldn’t know for sure, Annabel believed the same was true of Josie.

The car radio beeped. Annabel answered and waited for the message and code and tried not to let disappointment nip at her. They had to investigate a missing cat. Again. Annabel hid her annoyance and ignored Luis’s grimace. He was an experienced cop, and before being paired with her, he’d worked much more interesting cases.

After Annabel acknowledged the code and location, Luis made a U-turn in the direction of the house with the missing cat. “You realize this is the same dingbat who lost her cat last week?” Luis asked.

“I realize it,” Annabel said.

“Cat’s probably hiding in her house again,” Luis said. The last time Mrs. Granger had called them to help find her cat, Cubbles had been sleeping in a windowsill.

“She called us. We need to take it seriously,” Annabel said.

“Fine, but I’m not turning on the lights and sirens for this,” Luis said.

“I agree. But we will check the windowsill first,” Annabel said.

This was a familiar discussion between them. Luis had much less patience for calls he considered a waste of police resources. Some of the calls seemed silly, but she was eager to prove herself. They had to respond to calls—even the ones that were a waste of her time. If she could get the chief and Sam to see her as more than a rookie in need of protecting, she might prove to them she was capable of actual police work.

Chapter 2

Ethan and Lizzie had invited the Colton siblings to their ranch house for dinner. Annabel didn’t know how Lizzie was managing to cook dinner for so many people when she was due to have her baby soon. Most days after work, Annabel was so tired she heated dinner in the microwave and had a glass of wine.

Ethan and Lizzie were jazzed about their baby. It was almost hard to watch. They were in love, and after what they had been through, they deserved every moment of happiness they’d found together.

Of course, not all of the Colton siblings would be in attendance. Josie wanted nothing to do with her biological family. Despite Trevor’s FBI resources, Sam’s detective skills and Chris’s PI abilities, they hadn’t been able to locate her.

Annabel wondered what they had done, or hadn’t done, to make Josie hate them. Lizzie had been in foster care with Josie, and she didn’t recall Josie speaking angrily about her siblings. Annabel worried Josie had gotten herself into trouble, perhaps drug use or hanging with the wrong crowd. Given how the Colton siblings had grown up, the statistics weren’t in their favor for them becoming successful and productive members of society. She and her brothers had worked hard in their careers, and Annabel believed her brothers carried the same burden of their father’s crimes with them. Annabel thought Josie had risen above the past, but in dark moments of doubt, concerns plucked at her.

Annabel parked outside the ranch house. She was pleased to see her twin’s white pickup truck in front of the house. Annabel could confide in Chris, and he didn’t seem to resent her new career as a police officer as much as her other siblings. Whether it was because she and Chris had their twin connection or because they’d become and stayed close in high school, he listened to her. She could tell him anything.

Last year when Annabel had graduated from the police academy at the top of her class, she had thought her brothers would see her desire to be a police officer, and one day a detective, wasn’t a whim or an act of defiance against them.

Only Sam had been present at her graduation, and that was because most of the current members of the GGPD attended the ceremony. Her brothers’ absences had hurt her more than she’d ever said. They rarely asked her about her job, nor did they acknowledge her professional accomplishments. Annabel tried to remain calm about it and pretend she didn’t care. Their family was facing enough problems, and her brothers wouldn’t take kindly to criticism.

Taking a deep breath and focusing on the reason she was there, to see her family and discuss the clues Matthew Colton had provided them, Annabel rang the doorbell.

Sam answered, beer in hand, and he greeted her with a hug. At least when they were at family gatherings, he didn’t act like her superior. He was a detective, and she, six years older, was a rookie cop. His frostiness at work was his way of keeping her away from dangerous cases, as if that would keep her safe. Random, bad things happened all the time, even to cops who were assigned missing-cat reports.

She lived with that knowledge and had since the day her mother had been murdered. Annabel’s soul wasn’t at ease, knowing something terrible could happen to someone she loved with no warning. It was a brutal lesson she had learned from her father.

Sam escorted her inside. Lizzie had a fresh pie cooling on the counter and dinner was set in serving dishes on the table. How did she do it? Annabel didn’t own serving dishes, period, much less matching ones.

Annabel pointed to the pie. “If your pie goes missing, I can help you find it. I have some experience with that.” The words left her mouth tinged with anger. She hadn’t meant to say anything about the crappy assignments she had been given at work. It was not professional to speak about her job in her free time or to make passive-aggressive comments. That wasn’t the way to deal with Sam. She knew better.

“We all have to start somewhere,” Sam said, looking uncomfortable. He glanced at his fiancée, Zoe, and then at Annabel.

Zoe, a librarian, cleared her throat, adjusted her glasses and narrowed her eyes at Sam. It confirmed what Annabel suspected. The entire family knew she was given the worst, most boring assignments in the GGPD.

That made it sting worse and feel as if they were in cahoots against her, even though Ethan, Lizzie, Chris and Zoe had nothing to do with her work duties.

Annabel’s tactics to get better assignments were to act with professionalism and grace regardless of the circumstances. She had to rise above, as she had done all her life. Rise above her father’s terrible legacy. Rise above her foster parents’ crushingly low expectations of her. Rise above the police department’s belief she couldn’t handle the tough assignments. “Did you handle a lot of cases that involved missing cats and handing out tickets along Main Street?” she asked sweetly.

Chris came in from the porch. “Annabel, I thought I heard your voice.” He hugged his sister and then looked at her. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing of note,” she said. Before she could tell him anything about what a rotten day it had been, Lizzie broke in.

“It’s just us tonight. Ridge and Darcy couldn’t make it. Darcy’s on shift at the hospital, and Ridge is working,” Lizzie said.

Ridge, Annabel’s younger brother, worked in search and rescue, and his high school love, Darcy, was an emergency room doctor at Blackthorn County Hospital. Though they’d parted ways after high school, they’d recently reunited, and Annabel had never seen Ridge so happy.

“I thought Trevor was coming by,” Sam said.

“Something came up at work, apparently,” Lizzie said.

“Another dead body,” Chris said, more a question than a statement.

Lizzie shivered. “He didn’t say. He spoke to Ethan when he called. Ethan would be here, but he had a couple of heifers birthing tonight and he’s with them in the barn.”

Trevor and his FBI team were working with the Granite Gulch Police Department, but the FBI was keeping some details of the Alphabet Killer cases to themselves. The FBI had access to the data in the Alphabet Killer case: the complete autopsies, the ballistics reports and detailed crime scene data, analyzed at their state-of-the-art labs.

Annabel wondered how much Trevor shared with Sam. Some details of the case had been made public knowledge, some had been distributed to the members of the GGPD assigned to the case and some were a matter of speculation.

They sat at the table, and after exchanging pleasantries, the conversation turned to Matthew Colton. Since Matthew had first made a deal with Sam to reveal the location of their mother’s body, he had been the focus of discussions often.

Though speaking of him wasn’t the most pleasant topic, Matthew Colton was dying, and he’d engaged them in a game of clues, offering each of his children one word to figure out where their mother had been buried. They were permitted to visit, one Colton per month, on the last Sunday of the month, to receive their clue.

Matthew Colton was serving six consecutive life sentences, and knowing his life would end in prison, perhaps he felt doing something for his children would earn his soul some peace. Matthew did nothing selflessly.

Annabel had considered Matthew was screwing with them, baiting them into visiting him in prison and pretending he was willing to tell them where their mother was buried. Her brothers believed Matthew was genuine in this instance, perhaps attempting one final act to make some amends to his children for what he had done to their family. Nothing would grant him absolution, but at least knowing their mother’s final resting place would provide them closure. They could give Saralee a proper burial and service, which Annabel thought her mother would have liked.

Annabel anticipated Matthew Colton was ultimately trying to manipulate them. No way did visits from his children mean anything to him. If he cared about his children, he wouldn’t have killed their mother and destroyed their family.

“Texas, hill and B,” Zoe said. As a librarian, she had been conducting research on the Colton family and those words, trying to establish connections that the siblings, being too close to the case, hadn’t made on their own.

“Annabel, you’re planning to visit Matthew, aren’t you?” Sam asked.

Why was he on her case? She would go, of course. She hadn’t seen her father in over twenty years, and looking at his murderous face, the face that had haunted her dreams for years, was the last thing she wanted to do. But her siblings needed answers, and even though Annabel had her doubts about Matthew telling the truth, she wasn’t selfish enough to put her hatred of her father above her brothers. “I will go see him. I’ve been combing the letters, and he might give something away during our conversation. Hopefully, I can make a connection to what Regina wrote in her letters,” Annabel said. “I’d like to spare Chris and Trevor the punishment of seeing him.”

Chris patted her hand encouragingly, and Lizzie and Zoe smiled sympathetically. Sam just stared at her.

“Do you want one of us to go with you? I could wait in the car,” Sam said.

He was being supportive, but she couldn’t help feel he was questioning her strength. “I can do it.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t know if he’d be willing to speak to me if I brought someone else,” Annabel said. “The arrangement you made with him was pretty specific, and I’m sure he’d love for one of us to make a mistake so he can renege on the deal partway through.”

As they discussed techniques of dragging more information from their father, Annabel’s thoughts switched to Regina Willard and then to Jesse Willard.

Jesse had to have some connection to his sister, Matthew Colton’s most loyal fan. Having read the letters Regina had sent Matthew, Annabel had no doubt Regina was unhinged. But Jesse had seemed normal. Could Annabel have been wrong about that? Was Jesse just better at hiding his crazy? Annabel’s police instincts were usually reliable. She had dealt with enough nutcases and criminals to intuit when someone was off their rocker.

“Earth to Annabel,” Zoe said softly.

“What?” Annabel asked, straightening. “Sorry, I was thinking about the case.”

“I asked if you’ve been seeing anyone,” Sam said.

Annabel hated that question, because the answer everyone wanted was she was in a stable relationship. She dated, but it never turned into anything serious. “I’ve been busy with work and the letters from Matthew,” Annabel said. Sam, Ethan and Ridge had found love, and she hoped Chris was next, but a great romance wasn’t in the cards for her. She didn’t have time. Past relationships ended because she couldn’t make a connection with someone. Boyfriends were wary of her, suspecting something dark and twisted slept inside her, because she was the daughter of Granite Gulch’s most infamous serial killer.

Chris had found love once, but it had ended tragically. He had lost his wife, and he hadn’t been able to move on yet. The house he had built for Laura remained empty. He couldn’t move into it and, instead, lived in an apartment over Double G Cakes and Pies. They made the best desserts in town, and Chris was lucky he wasn’t a hundred pounds overweight. His PI job kept him hopping. Every time Annabel visited her brother, she couldn’t resist stopping into the Double G for a dessert and to visit with her good friend Mia.

Even so, thinking about the woman Chris had lost made Annabel sad. Chris could have been happy with a family of his own, but instead he worked too much and kept any prospects at bay.

“You need some balance in your life,” Sam said.

Annabel felt her defensiveness rise. No one criticized Chris or Trevor about their lack of love lives. “Just because you fell in love doesn’t mean everyone else will.”

Sam smiled at Zoe, and if Annabel didn’t love them both so much, she would have gagged at the sugary sweetness in that shared look.

“We just want you to be happy,” Lizzie said. “And lately, it seems like you go to work and then go home and read those letters.” She shuddered. “You deserve more. You deserve happiness.”

She was happy. She was finally a police officer, a dream she had chased without her family’s approval. Achieving that goal meant a lot to her. Proving herself meant she could ask for better assignments. “Until we get this resolved with Matthew, I’m satisfied with my life and plenty busy.”

The conversation moved on, and Annabel was glad the focus had shifted away from her.

After dinner, Annabel joined Chris on the back porch. She sat next to him on the patio sofa, and they propped their feet on the wooden coffee table.

“You know he goes after you because he worries,” Chris said. “We all do.”

He was referring to Sam. Annabel understood. Her younger brother might be one of Granite Gulch’s best detectives, but he had a lot to learn about his place in the family. He didn’t get to call the shots in her life. “I worry about you all, too. Your PI work puts you in tough spots. Ridge is running around in dangerous terrain, and Sam is working the streets, searching for criminals, and Trevor...well, who knows what he’s up to, but I guarantee it involves dangerous people.”

“I know. I worry about everyone, too. With you, it’s different. We lost Josie,” Chris said.

His words hit her in the gut. Annabel wanted more than anything to find her sister, work out whatever problems were keeping them apart and for Josie to be part of their lives. “I know.” It was painful for them to have Josie far out of reach.

“And Mom,” Chris said. “And Laura. It’s the Colton curse. Bad things happen to Colton women.”

Annabel had thought about that before. “I think about Mom and Josie, too.”

“I know you do,” Chris said. “I want you all to find the happiness I had with Laura, even though I feel cheated out of time with her. When I see Sam, Ethan and Ridge, I envy their happiness, and I worry about Zoe, Lizzie and Darcy.”

Annabel squeezed her twin’s hand. “Nothing bad will happen. Matthew is behind bars, and he can’t hurt us anymore. We’re staying close and watching out for each other.” Though Sam, Ethan and Ridge had been through difficult struggles in recent months, they had been strong and had protected the women they loved.

Chris shrugged. “Except Matthew found a groupie who seems to believe he is brilliant and worth following in his footsteps.”

It was disturbing to Annabel, as well. “I wish the media would stop dragging out Matthew Colton stories and parading them around with parallels to Regina. That only encourages her, and whoever else may have the unbalanced idea to commit crimes to become famous.”

“Matthew seems amused by Regina’s antics.”

“Matthew having any source of happiness burns me,” Annabel said. “That’s part of the reason I don’t want to visit him. He loves jerking us around. He couldn’t get us to visit any other way, so he dangles the one thing that compels us.”

“You still think it’s a game with no ending?” Chris asked.

“Why not ask us to visit and tell us where Mom is buried without clues and cryptic messages spread across many months?” Annabel asked. “He’s dying. It has to have dawned on him that he could die before we receive our clues. Then, where are we? He can enjoy watching us twist and squirm and beg him for information. In any case, who knows if these clues even mean anything? One word is hardly enough. If it were that easy to find Mom, we would have found her. Or the authorities would have found her twenty years ago.”

“No way to know unless we follow through on our visits,” Chris said.

“After I go, it’s your turn.”

Chris sighed. “Don’t remind me. I’m not looking forward to talking to that man any more than you are, but I’ll do it. I want Mom to have a real burial.”

“We’ll get through this,” Annabel said, resting her head on her brother’s shoulder. “Coltons can withstand anything, especially when we stand together.”

* * *

“Even for a small town, you and I seem to land the most boring assignments in America,” Luis said, sliding his gun into its holster at his hip and closing his locker.

Annabel agreed with him, but she had been trying not to focus on it. Talking about it fed into her anger and frustration.

“It wasn’t like this before I was your partner. I actually apprehended criminals in the process of committing crimes. I responded to home invasions.”

Guilt hit her, and she tried not to turn that guilt into more anger at Sam. He had something to do with her crappy assignments, and it scorched her. Shouldn’t he want to help her in her career, not hold her back?

“Then again, my wife is happier with you as my partner. She doesn’t need to worry as much. I’m not in danger tracking a culprit who trampled a flower garden. Especially when that culprit turns out to be two-year-old twins who were chasing their ball into a grouchy neighbor’s yard.”

Annabel pictured Zoe looking at Sam, and her anger flamed hotter. Her and Luis’s dull assignments were intentional and unfair. Other rookies weren’t assigned only boring tasks. Sure, she should pay her dues, and she understood it was more than her rookie status keeping her away from the most interesting and dangerous case in the GGPD, the Alphabet Killer murders. She was tangentially related to the case because of her connection, no matter how severed, to Matthew Colton, and Chief Murray wouldn’t involve her directly because he was worried about a slick-talking defense lawyer twisting the facts of the case and pointing to prejudicial handling and analysis of evidence by a Colton.

But another day of missing pies and cats, and Annabel would lose it.

“Give me a minute. I need to talk to the chief before we head out,” Annabel said.

“I’ll grab some coffees,” Luis said.

Annabel strode to Chief Murray’s office. She reached for the door handle and took a deep breath. Getting this off her chest would save her sanity. Even if Chief Murray told her to suck it up and deal with it, at least he’d be aware she knew she was being treated unfairly. It wasn’t just about her. Luis was bored to tears, too.

Annabel almost lost her nerve when she saw Sam speaking with him. Sam was seated across from Chief Murray’s desk, slightly reclined in the chair, looking relaxed and buddy-buddy with the chief. Maybe it was better Sam was in the room. Both needed to hear what she had to say, and this would save her from repeating herself. Sam might be dismissive with her, but Chief Murray was a fair man and would hear her out.

She knocked once on the door and then opened it, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. She’d had enough conflicts in her life to know rushing in with guns blazing, firing accusations around the room, wasn’t the best technique with men who liked to be right.

The chief prided himself on making levelheaded and fair decisions. Sam believed he was above reproach.

“’Morning, Annabel. What can I do for you?” Chief Murray asked.

Annabel glanced at Sam. He didn’t seem annoyed, only curious. To this point, Annabel had kept her head down and worked. She didn’t complain to her bosses, and she didn’t bad-mouth her work assignments to anyone on the force. Her dear friend Mia had heard an earful about her terrible assignments, but that was what great friends were for.

“Yesterday, I handed out five parking tickets, looked for a missing cat, which turned out to be sleeping in the owner’s upstairs windowsill, and took a report for a missing blueberry pie. My prime suspects in that case are the baker’s children, whose faces were smeared with cinnamon and blue jam, but who swore they had nothing to do with the pie’s disappearance.” She took a deep breath. “I graduated at the top of my class from the police academy. I’m not above the simple assignments, but why am I assigned all the dull assignments in the department?”

Chief Murray looked at her and said nothing for a long moment. “Anything else?”

“My partner is an experienced police officer. He has a lot to teach me and can offer much more to the town, but not when he’s shackled to me, the magnet for boring.”

She had made her point, and she waited for Chief Murray to respond.

Sam looked part worried and part admiring.

Chief Murray leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his stomach. “You’ve excelled at the tasks you’ve been assigned.”

How hard was writing parking tickets and taking reports? “Yes, sir.”

“I’ve noted the contributions you’ve made to other cases. The Alphabet Killer case in particular.”

She was surprised he had remembered she had worked with the letters on that case. “Yes, sir.”

He leaned forward. “Luis is on vacation the next two days, and I had planned for you to work the information phone—”

Annabel could have fallen asleep at the idea of sitting at the information desk for two full shifts. When Luis had mentioned he was taking a couple of days off to celebrate his wedding anniversary with his wife, Annabel had hoped she would be given a temporary partner. The information phone was the worst fate in work tasks.

“But I have an assignment for you, something you might find more enjoyable.”